A.I. is probably one of the most exciting concepts I know of, yet if you think about it the somewhat disappointing utilitarian "reality" of A.I. is what makes s

A.I. is probably one of the most exciting concepts I know of, yet if you think about it the somewhat disappointing utilitarian "reality" of A.I. is what makes sense. For example why are no other species as intelligent as humans? Are they just slow evolvers, or suck at evolving? Are humans just blessed evolvers to achieve intelligence before everybody else? No, survival is a purely utilitarian exercise. You find a stable niche and fill it, or die. In other words humans and their brains have just stumbled upon a particular pattern of living (what with language and societies and "intelligence") that is currently "stable". What if in 500 years all humans are extinct, yet bacteria still happily do their thing. Would we still consider humans so 'intelligent'? The same rule applies to processes embodied in silicon as to processes embodied in carbon. And for as intelligent as we humans think we are, we are very bad at predicting where the next stable niche will be (otherwise we'd all be millionaire entrepreneurs). This is why when "A.I." finds a stable niche in areas like search engines and warehouse management, we are both surprised and a bit disappointed.